Is there a Relationship between Game Lethality and Role Play?

[Hussar]

I've been diving into some new RPG's of late. Not playing them, yet, but reading them. One thing I've noticed is an underlying assumption (and sometimes not so underlying) that if you ramp up the lethality of combat, and make recovery from damage much more difficult, you will reduce the level of violence in your game. As a corollary of this, the presumption seems to be that players will role play more as they actively work to avoid combat.

Do you think this bears fruit in play? Can you push players to role play by simply making combat so unappealing that they won't have a choice?

 

[Korgoth]

I've been diving into some new RPG's of late. Not playing them, yet, but reading them. One thing I've noticed is an underlying assumption (and sometimes not so underlying) that if you ramp up the lethality of combat, and make recovery from damage much more difficult, you will reduce the level of violence in your game. As a corollary of this, the presumption seems to be that players will role play more as they actively work to avoid combat.

Do you think this bears fruit in play? Can you push players to role play by simply making combat so unappealing that they won't have a choice?

My Empire of the Petal Throne game is pretty deadly (OD&D rules, essentially)... this was discovered early on and since then the players have been cautious. They almost always try to parley with beings they encounter (except for obviously hostile stuff, like undead) and often will only go into combat when it is a necessity. So there's a lot more negotiation... even reaching deals with certain creatures. When combat does happen, it is often dramatic and memorable.

So, yes. It causes them to pick their battles, and to talk to a lot of things/people (snake dudes, slavers, evil spellcasters, etc.) that you might not talk to in other games. I like throwing strange propositions and moral dilemmas at my party, and they like charting their way through such things, so that works well for us.

 

[GregT_314]

From a game design perspective if you don't want combat you don't give it mechanics. Games that aren't about cookery don't have complex cooking rules; games that aren't about vehicles don't have complex driving rules. If you don't want your game to be about combat, you just reduce the rules down to, effectively, a coin toss with modifiers.

In essence, if you don't want players to do something, stop rewarding them for doing it by resolving it with well-realised and interesting mechanics.

From a single game perspective, if your game's a combat-critical game (be it D&D, Shadowrun, or what have you), and you're trying to dissuade your characters from engaging in combat, one has to wonder why you're bucking your system rather than playing something that better suits your gaming style. But even so, it's not an effective DMing style. Killing characters for non-plot reasons has two places in roleplaying: short games, and low-investment games. In neither place does it promote roleplaying; it is, at best, roleplaying-neutral.

Basically, if your main concern is to get players to stop solving their problems through violence, then stop having the violence solve their problems.

 

[Hussar]

Korgoth - do you find that sometimes it goes the other way though? That some players will simply ramp up their lethality to the point where they will always win every fight? If combat is lethal, they buy personal shields, powered armor and mini-guns, or whatever the equivalent is in whatever system you're playing.

 

[Yesterday]

I've seen Game Lethality have this effect, in a group of players that otherwise tended to choose combat solutions when it wasn't necessary.

I would also say that it would inherently encourage roleplay. In high fantasy, the heroes might be fired up at the prospect of drawing weapons and giving evil the old what-for (Especially if there's a cleric around.)

But in some of the grittier systems, people probably wouldn't look forward to combat, and would avoid it if possible. (Like most real people).

And while I would agree with the the point made previously, that character death is typically a bad thing, a high-violence campaign where the players start to realize that they probably won't die, no matter how reckless they are, can quickly spiral out of control. It doesn't always work out that way, of course, but when it does, in can really derail a campaign.

EDIT: To try to answer your question about player lethality, Hussar:

You might end up having to restrict things from the players, depending on the system. (Something many are hesitant to do). You can also up the challenges, considerably.

In general, players will always have their combat abilities increase as their characters advance. Depending on the system, though, 5-10 typical goons might be able to give them serious trouble.

If power armor is enough to get that the players have it, some of the bad guys are probably sporting it, too.

I'll wrap it up here... Maybe an issue, too, is what players want out of the game. Some people don't dig negotiation and/or intrigue. If a game with less combat isn't something they're interested in, lethality alone probably won't change it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Korgoth - do you find that sometimes it goes the other way though? That some players will simply ramp up their lethality to the point where they will always win every fight? If combat is lethal, they buy personal shields, powered armor and mini-guns, or whatever the equivalent is in whatever system you're playing.

Players in my group reported that this did happen in their CoC games. (That was before I even played RPGs, so I wasn't there. )

I suppose if you still set the game up to require combat, but make it deadly, that's the only thing you get. Also, often losing PCs (and in CoC, that happens not just through deadly combat, but also by insanity) might make you less able to come up with fresh characters and personalities, and less interested in exploring them.

That all seemed to happen with them.

 

[Cadfan]

1. There are two general issues. The first is that some people believe that its easier to invest in a character, and therefore to roleplay it, if that character has some staying power. If that character is likely to die easily, then it won't have staying power and you won't have time to grow attached, develop a rich personality, and roleplay well. The second issue is that some people believe that if you spend a lot of time fighting, you must not be spending a lot of time roleplaying. I generally believe the first assertion. The second is more questionable... to a certain extent I agree that there is perhaps more roleplaying when you do not have the pressure of making intelligent decisions with the aim of winning a battle. Without that pressure you can afford to goof off a bit more, with it your options are a little more constrained. So to that extent I agree, but I don't think that argument goes very far.

2. There's a difference between combat lethality and game lethality. D&D, for example, tends to assume cheap, easy resurrection. That gives you combat lethality without the game itself having lethality. In that environment you might die in a battle, but if you just pop back up afterwards it doesn't really matter in terms of preventing you from growing attached to your character.

3. Other games can have very lethal combat but plenty of roleplaying if the combat isn't a major focus of the gameplay. Og: Unearthed, for example, has extremely simple rules for combat. You basically just roll a d6, see if it beats a certain number, and start checking off hit points. You only have a few hit points. But combat isn't really the point of the game, its more a punishment for failing at the real purpose: communication of complex ideas through grunts, sign language, and two or three not particularly useful words.

 

[steenan]

Highly lethal combat may work both ways - it may encourage roleplaying, but it may also hurt it.

It encourages roleplaying because combat cannot be taken lightly. Players need a good motivation to enter combat, PCs will fight only for something that is important to them. More conflicts will be resolved in non-violent way. Strongly motivated characters will be roleplayed more consistently and intensely.

It hurts roleplaying, because the risk of PCs death forces players to think a lot about weapons, armors, effective builds and combat tactics, thus detracting from character development. If characters die often, it is hard to get attached to one and build up his personality.

In general, risky combat helps roleplaying if there are interesting non-combat solutions available or if the game assumes that characters aren't always able to attain their goals. It discourages roleplaying in games that are risky, but combat-centered anyway.

 

[Lanefan]

With my crew, it sometimes doesn't seem to matter how lethal I make the combat - they still charge in headfirst regardless. (particularly in one recent case when a clearly superior opponent didn't want to fight and was trying to leave - the party chased him down! 3 PC deaths later...)

That said, they also seem to have a nigh-endless supply of new personalities and character traits to put into the replacements...

To answer the original question: I'm really not sure. As a player, I've found often enough that non-violent interaction with the opposition only tends to delay the inevitable...sooner or later, we're going to take the bad guy down anyway...so why not just get on with it. As a DM, I find the best role-play comes not when interacting with the bad guys, but instead with both a) the shades-of-gray guys who may or may not be on the party's side and b) within the party itself.

Lanefan

 

[Plane Sailing]

I notice that lethal combat makes PCs more likely to seek alternative means of progressing... combat becomes a last resort rather than a first alternative (I saw this most clearly in a sci-fi game, but it probably applies all over the place).

I quite like this, although I recognise that it doesn't appeal to everyone.